Dong Xuan Centre

An industrial site in the east of the German capital, on the horizon prefabricated buildings tower into the sky. A red and yellow neon sign with the inscription "Dong Xuan Centre" hangs above the entrance. As soon as they pass through the yellow gateposts, visitors feel as if they are in Vietnam. The smell of fried noodles and rice-noodle soup fills the air and various goods from Southeast Asia are on offer. The oldest market of Hanoi was the model for the Dong Xuan Centre. Since 2005, the market halls on the site, which is the size of almost 24 football fields, are an attraction for people from Berlin, tourists as well as a meeting place for the Vietnamese community in Berlin.

Where today the largest Vietnamese market of Europe is found, VEB Elektrokohle Lichtenberg in the GDR used to produce carbon brushes for industrial motors. In 1989, around 60,000 Vietnamese contract workers were employed in GDR state-owned enterprises such as VEB Elektrokohle. Today, some of these former contract workers have their own business in the Dong Xuan Centre.

From 1978 onwards, the GDR closed contracts with socialist countries such as Vietnam to recruit workers. A win-win situation for both states: production shortages in manufacturing in the GDR were compensated and twelve percent of the wages went to Vietnam for the development of the socialist homeland. The stay was limited to four to five years, private contacts with the population of the GDR were not welcome. The dormitories, in which the Vietnamese often lived on only 6 square metres, were sealed off. The residence rules were also strict: in the event of prolonged illness, accidents at work and pregnancy, the contract threatened the return to Vietnam.

On October 3, 1990, the GDR joined the Federal Republic under the Unification Treaty. The reunification of Germany after more than 40 years of division also affected the approximately 100,000 contract workers, the largest group of whom, around 60,000, came from Vietnam. Many of the contract workers lost their jobs even before reunification as GDR companies closed down. As a result, they also had to give up their dormitory places and from one day to the next no longer had any prospects in Germany. 16,000 Vietnamese contract workers remained after reunification. Others accepted flight tickets back home and compensations for voluntary departure. The Vietnamese that stayed were repeatedly subject to racist acts of violence and attacks in the 1990s. They often stayed afloat through self-employment, operating restaurants, small stores or nail salons. It was not until 1997 - seven years after reunification - that former contract workers were granted permanent residence rights on humanitarian grounds.

In the GDR, Nguyen Van Hien was group leader in the Baukombinat Ost in Potsdam. After reunification, he traded textiles. "It was all about survival", Nguyen Van Hien says of the time after 1990. He founded his first store for Asian goods in Leipzig and named it Dong Xuan Centre. In 2003, he bought the industrial wasteland of VEB Elektrokohle at the Herzbergstraße in Lichtenberg and founded the Berlin counterpart two years later. According to Nguyen Van Hien, "Lichtenberg is the capital of the Vietnamese in Germany."